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Home Ground: A filmmakers take on the lives of two icy sailors

James Aiken

Filmmaker, Photographer

James Aiken is the filmmaker to create Home Ground. It’s meditative journey between Iceland and Greenland will make you shiver; in awe, in the freezing temperatures and quiet mystery of these waters. The documentary passes a whisker from icy giants and between the perspectives of James’ lens and the personal lives of two sailors.

We wanted to know where, why and how Home Ground came to be.

AHB: First of all, you’re from the U.K, is that where you are usually and right now? What’s your ‘home ground’?

James Aiken: My original ‘Home Ground’ is the south coast of Dorset, a blend of rural England and gentle seaside but at the moment I would not really say I have one particular home. I base myself out of London but I’m away, either with work or pleasure, for half the time and that’s the way I’d like it to be, at least for a few more years. London is an amazing place to develop your working life but I find the environment unfulfilling so it’s important to me to regularly escape and find some big vistas.

How long have you been making films?

I first started traveling with a video camera almost ten years ago. I had shot a lot of 35mm photography before that, but when I started to really travel on longer trips once I finished school I felt that video more suited the way that I wanted to tell the stories.

How about your interest in anthropology.. Do you research a lot before you begin a project, or intuit the process and people you involve as you go?

I think a lot of mainstream documentaries begin with a topic, and shoot the footage to justify that point of view. I try to approach these trips and films with an open mind as to what I might find. I think its really important to spend time with the people, and let them tell you about what they would like to tell you before filming them or attempting to interview them. I think if you do this you allow their thoughts to guide the film’s narrative.

I try to approach these trips and films with an open mind as to what I might find. I think its really important to spend time with the people, and let them tell you about what they would like to tell you before filming them or attempting to interview them.

What might draw you to these tucked away cold corners of the world?

I’ve always been hugely inspired by the Scottish landscape, and I always feel a certain release when I cross the border. I think it’s the vastness and the volatility that make it a place to really contemplate the important things. The blend of wild mountains close to incredible surf mean that you can experience a cross section of both worlds in a short time. Once I had realised that these were the places I loved to be, I began looking for more exaggerated versions like Iceland and Greenland.

These landscapes captured are overwhelmingly beautiful. What feelings or thoughts do you have experiencing them in real life?

I don’t like to use the world ‘spiritual’ for fear of being written off as wafty, but there definitely is something in these places that gives perspective and a sense of place within a bigger picture.

How did you meet Siggi and Dines, your Greenlandic and Icelandic interviewees in the film?

I first met Siggi in his home town Ísafjörður. I had just returned from a surf trip across a glacier into a fairly remote area, and he was interested in how we had got on. He actually invited us round and cooked traditional Icelandic puffin which was pretty epic. Once he had mentioned the boat and the trips he does I offered to crew and it all started there.

I don’t like to use the world ‘spiritual’ for fear of being written off as wafty, but there definitely is something in these places that gives perspective and a sense of place within a bigger picture.

The selected moments of interviews from Siggi and Dines are quite concise, eloquent but direct, at pace with the film. How long did you spend speaking to them about their lives?

The interviews were maybe half an hour long each, but I shot them after spending as much time with each person as possible so I had an idea of what direction they might go. I tried to visualise how the two stories might be interwoven beforehand and talk about topics that they would feel natural discussing and give honest yet emotive answers to.

What kind of weather did you experience, the best and worst of it?

The hardest times because of cold were late at night but they were also the most rewarding. That feeling of isolation and vulnerability, being on deck in the Greenland Straights at 3AM straining to see the small icebergs that the radar doesn’t pick up is one of my favourite memories but not particularly fun in the moment.

That feeling of isolation and vulnerability, being on deck in the Greenland Straights at 3AM straining to see the small icebergs that the radar doesn’t pick up is one of my favourite memories but not particularly fun in the moment.

What do you think is one moment, visual or otherwise, captured on film or otherwise, that will most stay with you from this experience?

One vivid memory was being very close to a rolling iceberg. I had heard a lot from Siggi about how unstable the ice can be, and how as the ice melts its centre of gravity can shift quite abruptly and cause them to flip. I was in a small tender hanging over the side filming the droplets falling into the sea that actually appears in the film. I had the camera in one hand and was holding the base of the ice with the other and it suddenly started to roll, luckily away from me. I managed to start the outboard engine first time and be clear for the final part of the rotation but it was an incredible spectacle. Like watching a small building up-end in a matter of seconds.

Back to the colder climes again? Where to for your next project?

The response to my first two anthropological films has been great, and there seems to be an interest in more of a feature length version so this year that’s my main goal. I had never fully planned either of these films but I do think they embody how I actually feel about these places and experiences. I think pushing them in production value and duration would be the natural progression and something that I feel I have to get off my chest!

It seems to me that this is the golden age of amateur photography. How do professionals, that is those who are committed documentary, editorial, photojournalists, how do we go about telling stories that are convincing and compelling in a visually saturated environment?

National Geographic photographer Sam Abell has defined his career with patience. There is no dull section of a Sam Abell photograph, the frame is layered from back to front with compelling imagery. This can be a slow process, it can take days, weeks, or in some cases months for the right opportunity to present itself.

There were many rafts over the course of the four years and all were built with salvaged materials. The construction boom happening in NYC in the mid-2000s provided a lot of scrap material that we pulled from dumpsters.

I love the unexpected, uncontrollable moments that just happen. That’s why I suppose spontaneity is really the crux of the best art I’ve done. That, and I just really love the process of making things.

There are countless stories that tell of a young man, lost and uncertain, who sets out on a whirlwind adventure and figures out who he really is. It is a sad reality that amongst the great classic adventure stories, very few (if any) of the protagonists are female.

I perceive my photographic work through a director’s eyes, however, the difference in my vision, is that the whole world is a stage. It’s an intense sensation of “limitless”. I like to recreate a fantastic universe of dreams and travels.

Arriving back in Marrakech, I felt like I had truly been to outer space and back; I felt like I had seen landscapes that could not exist on our planet. I felt like I had stepped both back and out of time and had seen and briefly experienced a different way of living, of one without time and without fear.

Photography is a fiction. It’s a frame of a film which hasn’t been made, or a line from a forgotten poem. I always create in camera as much as possible, because it is also about the experience of what is in front of you at the time.

It’s surprising to see a lot of people’s living spaces of a certain age – what they surround themselves with and how they decorate their houses. They’re like living museums. It’s often an incredible level of chaos and madness that they live amongst

I use that same word when I talk about travel – luxury. It’s such a white man’s headache you know, like, it’s not hard. People say “How did you do that? That’s so hard.” And I think, “Well there are some cold days, some warm days, you know..” But it’s my own choice, and it’s a privilege entirely.

Porter Yates is a photographer, and Dan Melamid is a director. They have been friends for many years, and both share a passion for travel and visual storytelling. Through Witness.Earth they have collaborated to develop a new style of photographic presentation to music.

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I’ve had a lifelong fascination with the ocean, and I think a large part of my focus in documenting it focuses on my curiosity and admiration for it… I’ve been circled by bullsharks, thrown over the falls at Teahupoo, ravaged by swarms of sea lice, bounced off the reef at Pipeline, had a jet ski thrown over my head in Australia…

My driving force is to discover places and creations that I personally find intriguing. As for what I’m trying to communicate to an audience, it is a more focused critical perspective, something that I will develop over time.

While cycling about in remote South Australia Tom was bitten on the neck by a reback spider and, after suffering through the night, made it to hospital the following day to be dosed up on two bags of anti-venom. Another time, while hiking Tasmania’s magnificent Overland Track through constant rainfall, a leech found its way quietly into his mouth.

At the age of 22, Larry Niehues packed his bags and headed to Mcallen in south Texas. Following the footsteps of Bruce Davidson, William Eggleston and Dennis Hopper, he embarked on his own great American road trip.

I struggle a little bit with my attraction to old things, but I like small towns and they are usually a little behind the times. At least landscapes are timeless. I can’t be accused of nostalgia when photographing nature.

Creativity runs through your veins. Photography is just a way to capture what you need to express. You see something that moves you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful, and you take a picture of it. Creativity is tied to anything that makes you tick. In my case it is the outdoors.

Ittoqqortoormiit is one of the most insulated towns in the world. Far away from all touristic highways and only accessible by helicopter. Two supply ships a year, and if you forget to lodge a request you must wait six more months for this.

Maybe in some of these places there has never been human presence, I access them with my kayak or by boat. Sometimes I’m lucky, and I go alone, sometimes I go with my groups. Either way I’m very lucky, I can see other worlds within this world. I’m very lucky to experience this.

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The Family Acid sounds something like an adult swim cartoon, but the truth is so much more awesome. They are in fact responsible for some of the most visually intriguing and detailed documentation of the counter cultural movement of the 1970’s on, out of the U.S and beyond.

That was a life changing time with two wonderful women and their amazing father who are dear friends of mine. They are sailors but it was a first for me to be out at sea for two weeks. The best way to explore any coast on a magic carpet ride!

It was an amazing, incredible sight to see hundreds of people on this beach. The horses went in first, four or five horses into the water, then the saints were immersed, and then everybody else went in after that to take the ritual bath.

I make an effort to let everyone I photograph know what I’m up to. I want them to understand where I am coming from. I think when they meet me they realise I’m not out to expose or judge them. Who am I to expose something or someone anyway?

This series is the first time I’ve ventured into photojournalism. The opportunity fell into place; I happened to be at the right place at the right time. I wasn’t prepared for the evident increase in poaching and anti-poaching activity this time around, and that was a shock. It’s a strange series to reflect on.